My leftist friend says that Ronald Reagan looked good on his 91st birthday
and how nice it was that Congressmen, including Democrats, paid their
respects. At first glance, it struck me as odd that she spoke well of
a President she had always loathed. Then it dawned on me. The tragic Reagan
of today is the Reagan she had always hoped for, namely, one that can't
talk back. In his present sad condition, Former President Ronald Reagan
can no longer threaten the left and, as such, he has now become, de facto,
a good leftist himself. After all, he can no longer question political
correctness, he's completely dependant on others, and he no longer thinks
for himself. The left can at last claim a victory over Reagan, the only
type of victory they could ever have against such a genuine patriot.

No
figure in the latter part of the twentieth century elicited a more committed
and enduring hate from the left than Reagan. While unapologetically standing
for moral absolutes and limited government, Reagan won two elections with
wide popular margins and was, in fact, one of the most popular presidents
in history. This flew in the face of the left's bogus posturing as representatives
of "the people." No leftist or leftist cause ever garnered such
popular support. In spite of eight years of an unprecedented and ugly
drumbeat of propaganda leveled against him by leftist media and institutions,
nothing would shake this support. The left would never understand that
Reagan's connection with average Americans came from an instinctive understanding
that he stood for individual freedom.

In his first year, Reagan cut taxes and reduced spending in all departments
except defense. Regarding welfare, Reagan spoke of helping "the truly
needy" which enraged a left that viewed welfare as a transfer of
wealth to bureaucracies and poverty as a business. Reagan's tax cut, like
John F. Kennedy's before him, greatly contributed to the economic prosperity
of the 1980's and 1990's. This might have led, the left feared, to a populace
that could realize that big government and big taxes were not the answer
to economic and social ills. The danger for the left was that average
people might get by quite nicely without them. Such prosperity threatened
to erode the left's constituency. With their authoritarian and overstuffed
schemes, the left feared that Reagan's government might expose the irrelevancy
of their entire enterprise and raison d'etre.

Rather than being content with détente or containment toward the
leftist Soviet Union and its satellites, Reagan sought to roll back and
defeat Communism, which, for the left, was like the ramming of a crucifix
into the heart of their vampire. Reagan supported the freedom fighters
against the blood soaked tyranny of Ortega in Nicaragua, he defeated the
Castro-ite puppet in Grenada, and he supported freedom-oriented governments
and movements in Latin America, which greatly contributed to genuine progress
toward democracy. Reagan supported the Polish Solidarity movement thus
helping to eventually liberate Poland, Eastern Europe, and even Russia
itself, from the brutal jackboot of a left wing communism that was responsible
for the murder of over 100 million people and the untold suffering and
poverty of millions more.

On March 8, 1983, in a speech in Orlando, Florida, President Reagan asked
for prayers for the "salvation of all of those who were in that totalitarian
darkness...Let us be aware that...they are the focus of evil in the modern
world." He admonished his audience to beware of the "temptation
of blatantly declaring yourselves above it all and label(ing) both sides
equally at fault, (and the temptation) to ignore the facts of history
and the aggressive impulses of an Evil Empire."

Reagan didn't flinch from identifying the difference between good and
evil. The reason the Evil Empire comment sent the left into such paroxysms
of scorn was not only because it plainly identified their own faith as
evil, but, more fundamentally, because Reagan was openly stating the truth
in the face of a political belief system that had everything invested
in denying the very existence of fundamental truths. Like Franklin D.
Roosevelt's open opposition to National Socialism after Pearl Harbor,
Reagan, with his Evil Empire speech, placed the American government, and
society, for the first time, in absolute moral and literal opposition
to international socialism. This one comment, more than anything else,
led to a significant collapse of the left's beloved communism.